Wallowing in the past won’t add to your future

There is a time for everything, but wallowing in your past will create an endless rut of misery. Isn’t it time to allow God, who knows all, to take the unknowns and allow you to walk in today?

I always like a good wallow, don’t you?

It’s like a warm, comfortable blanket that wraps itself snuggly around your soul. Ah, so reassuring to have a good wallow.

You’ve been there so many times it feels like home.

Wallowing seems to come easily too. One moment everything is ok and then without realizing you are stuck in that gluggy mire of yesteryear.

What is wallowing? 

Pigs wallow in mud. They roll themselves around in it and enjoy the cooling and itchy sensation of wet mud.

Similarly, we can roll ourselves around in the pain of the past.

We keep going back looking for answers, justifications, and relief.

We allow the hurts of the past to cling to us like a mud pack covering over the beautiful, purposeful creation we were designed to be.

It has happened to them according to the true proverb,

To wallow is to swallow a lie

When we wallow, we swallow a lie that we can find nutritional content in the mud of the past.

We ruminate over the past. Chewing it over and over making us sicker and sicker with every chew.

We convince ourselves about certain things even though others may have a different viewpoint.  [pullquote]Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean. Aldous Huxley[/pullquote]

Around and around we go, stirring up the mud until it becomes quicksand sucking us in and down.

The problem is that the more we tell ourselves certain things, the more we believe that they are true whether they are or not. We believe our own press despite the evidence being otherwise.

There is a season for everything

The writer of the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible says this.

There’s an opportune time to do things, a right time for everything on the earth:

There is a time for grieving, mourning, introspection, and to wallow (briefly).

But there is also a time to let go of what can’t be fully resolved. A time to forgive yourself and others. A time to mend and to make peace with the past.

If you do not transform your pain, you will surely transmit it
to those around you and even
to the next generation.  Richard Rohr

There has got to be something we can do about the pity party we keep throwing for ourselves.

What do we do about wallowing

I have one simple yet profound question.

 Is God sufficient to handle what you
are wallowing about? 

We want to be in control.

We want to be Sherlock Holmes solving the case of the pain of the past.

We want to find a culprit, either ourselves or someone else. We become Judge, Jury, and Executioner to our past.

Whereas no human judge, jury or executioner knows ALL the evidence. Only God knows the whole complete story about what we are wallowing about.

If we knew what God knows we may well have a completely different viewpoint.

We may well be able to live in grace towards ourselves and others.

Forgiveness flows when the heart knows that God understands all and is sufficient to carry all.

There is a time for everything, but wallowing in your past will create an endless rut of misery. Isn’t it time to allow God, who knows all, to take the unknowns and allow you to walk in today?

Quotes to consider

• The words we tell ourselves are more important than we realize. If you tell yourself something enough times and in the right circumstances, you will believe those words whether true or not. William Backus and Marie Chapian|
• If you are going to wallow in anything, His love for you will feel better than self-pity, rejection or anger. David Riddell
• Stuck in the past? Historic reality is not today’s reality, so we need to re-interpret the people we have judged from past times. D. Riddell
• It is not events either past or present which make us feel the way we feel, but our interpretation of those events. William Backus and Marie Chapian
• Rack the muck this way.
  Rack the muck that way.
  It will still be muck.
  In the time you are brooding,
  you could be on your way,
  stringing pearls for the delight of heaven.
  (Hasidic teaching)

Questions to answer

1. How much does a desire for safety and control influence your ability to ‘let go’ of the past?
2. How do you stop wallowing in the past?
3. There is a time or season for everything. How do you determine when it is time to stop wallowing?

Further Reading

• 7 Steps to Help Those with P.L.O.M’s (Poor Little Old Me) in the Mouth
• Forgiveness Is … Letting The Little Fish Go
• The Gentle Art of Letting Go
• Letting Go by Anna Johnstone

Barry Pearman

Image cc: Duncan Hill 

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